It's All Politics

9:13 am

Mon January 9, 2012

Over Wine And Donuts, N.H. Women Get Heated Over Primary Vote

Elaine Sweeney of Derry, N.H. hosted a gathering of women voters to talk about Tuesday's primary.

Nicole BeemsterboerNPR

On Morning Edition Monday, Steve Inskeep spoke with six women in Derry, N.H. who all plan to vote in Tuesday's first presidential primary.

Inskeep dropped by the home of Elaine Sweeney, where the women gathered for coffee, donuts and wine on Sunday to talk politics. Her house in Derry overlooks Beaver Lake, covered this time of year with a thin film of ice.

Several of the women have been attending debate parties and candidate events. Linda Dupere has repeatedly attended protest rallies. "I'm a tea partier," she says. "We want to see elected officials who are going to get in there and change big government."

All the women feel some connection to the issues dominating this election. Samantha Boudreau is 21 years old, and studying to be a pharmacist.

"Job creation is a big issue, and in New Hampshire I think we've been doing pretty well in the past few months creating jobs, but being a student, I will be graduating next May, and I'm going to have significant student loans to pay off, so getting a job is very important," says Boudreau, who says she'll owe over $140,000 when she graduates.

These women range from students to retirees, and it's easy to hear the high expectations they will have for whoever wins this election.

They want to cut back federal spending, but at the same time, several collect Social Security and Medicare, and they don't want future generations to live worse than they did.

Then there's Traci Homol, the mother of a five and a seven year old. She's worried about federal deficits and debt.

"We cannot afford Obamacare. This country absolutely cannot afford Obamacare. And what this election comes down to is are you going vote for an entitlement society, that's going to end up like Europe, broke, with everybody going 'Oh, I'm not getting my stuff,' or are you going to be a self-reliant society where everybody goes, 'Okay, we've got to buckle down, we've got tighten the belt, we've got to move forward.' That's what I'm looking for. And that's why I want [Rick] Perry. And if it's not going to be Perry, then I will go with whoever is the Repub nominee — Newt," Homol says.

"Can we afford not to fix health care? I mean, health care costs in the United States are twice as high as anywhere else in the world," Boudreau jumps in.

Even at this fairly conservative table, the pharmacy student is not afraid to say she voted for President Obama in 2008.

Boudreau still likes Obama, but New Hampshire residents can vote in either primary, and she's backing Jon Huntsman on Tuesday.

Independent voters like her can be a factor here. Many independents are backing Ron Paul, though when we name each candidate and ask our voters what words come to mind, Paul doesn't do well with this particular group. "Ineffective," "scary," "frightening," "fanatical," they say.

Other strong responses come for Newt Gingrich — people in our group come up with words ranging from "brilliant" to "over the top."

Mitt Romney gets everything from "smart" and "organized" to "leadership" to "not trustworthy."

Gail Gorham is dismayed that Romney is starting to seem like the inevitable nominee.

Then a disagreement develops.

On one side is Dupere, a Gingrich fan, who thinks of Romney as a "flip-flopper."

On the other is Sweeney, our host, who dismisses Gingrich and comes to Romney's defense.